May
14, 2001

WHY
THEY HATE USLessons of the UN 'rights' vote

America-haters
the world over were ecstatic
that the US was not reelected to the UN "Human Rights
Commission." That great champion of human rights,
Communist China, gleefully
pontificated in their state-controlled media
that "the U.S. election loss shows that America's
long-standing pursuit of confrontation and hegemonism
in international relations has aroused widespread
anger. Its double standard on human rights issues
has made it unqualified to critique the human rights
situation in the world and among other nations."
Whoever writes this stuff  some chained-to-his-desk
Chinese bureaucrat, whose skill at conveying double-meanings
can only be called Clintonian  is really a
pro, because technically you can't argue with it.
After all, China, whose gulag imprisons millions,
doesn't employ a double-standard: they consistently
defend a government's sovereign "right" to enslave
its own subjects. In the morally inverted world
we are living in  an era in which human stupidity
and hypocrisy have been globalized, along with the
economy  the Chinese are quite naturally qualified
to be members of this phony "human rights commission,"
along with Vietnam, Libya, Sierra Leone, and the
Sudan.

THIRD
WORLD HELLHOLES

Now
everyone, left and right, is outraged that this
last  a bastion of the traffic in human slavery
 was elected to the UN commission, but naturally
no one is talking about how the increasingly repressive
South African regime, also a commission member 
which is moving
to muzzle the independent media and cracking down
on the opposition  is also less than deserving.
To say so would be a "hate crime." As for mentioning that
none of the African countries serving on the commission
 Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria,
Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland,
Togo, Uganda, Zambia  could be described in terms
of human rights as anything other than Third World hellholes:
well, you can just forget it. To even imply such a thing
 never mind putting it so bluntly and truthfully
 would be to risk the threat of worldwide condemnation
and sanctions. But the really big scandal is not that
the island prison of Cuba retains its seat in this august
UN body  surely we are inured to such idiocies in
the UN  but that the very countries that maneuvered
us off the commission  and I'm talking about the
Europeans  are moving rapidly toward establishing
a totalitarian socialist dictatorship on a continental
scale.

EURO-INGRATES

The
US, which has been a member of the UN human rights commission
since its creation by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1947, was basically
stabbed in the back by the European ingrates we've been
defending, subsidizing, and mollycoddling for the past
fifty years. The "West" is allowed three seats, and our
European allies thoughtfully ran three candidates: Sweden,
France, and Austria won seats. We lost, in spite of the
43 nations who committed themselves to vote for the US:
it was, after all, a secret ballot, and so US retaliation
(say, a cutoff in aid) was not a factor. And it wasn't
a factor in any case, because what could the US do
about it? What did the US want to do about it?
Answer: exactly nothing.

GEPHARDT
AND THE PEOPLES' DAILY

While
the loss of our seat was indeed "an
outrage," said George W. Bush, we
have to pay our UN dues and we oughtn't to take any
action. Congress wasn't listening, and the Republican-controlled
House voted to withhold part of our UN dues: but the Senate
is unlikely to go along with this, and so this was really
just blowing off steam. In any case, the Democratic leader
of the House joined with the People's Daily and
assorted socialist Euro-trash in blaming America first.
Rep. Richard
Gephardt brayed that "Unfortunately, today's action
demonstrates that US unilateralism in foreign policy has
consequences." Was it our bombing of Iraq, of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade, or the destruction of the former
Yugoslavia  was it any of these blatant violations
of human rights that justified our unseating? No, of course
not: "According to diplomatic sources," burbled Gephardt,
"the Bush Administration's recent withdrawal from the
Kyoto Treaty and its willingness to shatter the international
arms control framework in pursuit of unproven missile
defenses influenced the vote by other nations against
our nomination to the Commission." Unless we shackle ourselves
to our shiftless "allies," who are only too glad for the
opportunity to stick it to us, saddle ourselves with a
Luddite sovereignty-destroying treaty, and make decisions
about our national security by taking an international
poll, we have only ourselves to blame  this is what
a national Democratic party leader and a potential presidential
candidate is telling us.

THE
AMEN CORNER

In
taking this line, Gephardt is acting as the EU's amen
corner in Washington, tut-tutting and finger-wagging that
"This Administration's failure to follow these basic diplomatic
precepts on critical global matters has undermined our
government's ability to sustain its leadership role in
the human rights arena." Following right behind him was
"Human Rights Watch," whose "UN representative" 
Joanna Weschler  piously
declared that it "wasn't surprising" that we were
kicked off: what did we expect after being "on the wrong
side of several human rights issues in the last few years,"
including opposing an International Criminal Court? But
even she had to admit that "to punish the United States
and reward Sudan, which was elected, is clearly absurd."
That is putting it mildly, but in the topsy-turvy world
of the United Nations, the absurd is the norm.

BUCHANAN
IN THE UN?

Hey,
so how come "Human Rights Watch" gets its own United
Nations representative, anyway? Do you have to be funded
by George Soros, or can any "nongovernmental organization"
apply? Gee, I hope this means that Antiwar.com is qualified
to make an application: I'd love to send Pat Buchanan
to UN headquarters as our rep! Wouldn't you? Unfortunately,
I don't think we'll ever get the chance to see Pat in
action, because I doubt whether we can measure up to the
UN"s standards: you can be a nongovernmental organization,
but obviously you can't be an anti-governmental
organization, which is what we are. For the United Nations
is nothing but an alliance of governments, and its "human
rights commission" is, by definition, nothing but an extension
of their power and interests. Asking the UN to judge "human
rights" is like asking a consortium of criminals to sit
in judgment of their own crimes.

A
CONSPIRACY OF "ALLIES'

In
blaming America for this conspiracy of our "allies," Gephardt
stupidly declared that "this means our government will
no longer have a voice on the principal international
body that evaluates human rights in countries like China,
Cuba, Iran, Libya and Sudan. This is very unfortunate."
Is it? Do we really need the US government to tell
us that the government of Libya is not exactly a friend
of human rights? What's "unfortunate" is not our expulsion,
but the legitimacy a body like the UN "human rights commission"
has in the eyes of our own elite.

FOR
THE RECORD

The
obvious hypocrisy of Sudan's elevation and our own ignominious
expulsion from this fountainhead of "human rights" is
a point made by numerous commentators, and I won't belabor
it here. But it isn't just the Third World members of
this esteemed panel whose bona fides need to be challenged.
Our "Western" allies  who abandoned us when it came
down to a vote, and took the seats for themselves 
don't stand up to any objective examination of their "human
rights" records, either. Austria, France, and Sweden were
elected, while Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
Spain, and the United Kingdom retained their seats. I
won't say a word against Austria, which deserves to be
elevated if only as compensation for the disgraceful treatment
accorded it by the EU when Brussels intervened against
the admission of the politically incorrect Austrian Freedom
Party into the Vienna government. But practically all
of the others are on some very dubious grounds
in terms of civil liberties. . . .

JUDGE
NOT, LEST YE BE JUDGED

Germany
regularly
bans rightist parties that show any popular appeal and
would arrest Tom Cruise if he tried to practice his religion
(Scientology,
along with "hate speech" is verboten). France
has similarly repressive "hate speech" laws, which basically
outlaw the political views of a good 30 percent of the electorate:
and Belgium, of course, is the epicenter of the infection,
where the bureaucrats
of Brussels are readying a European "federalism" that
will make the old Soviet federalism look like the Articles
of Confederation. Let's
not forget Canada, which has enacted extensive "hate
speech" legislation: censorship extends to everything from
discussions of race to dissenting opinions on the nature
and value of homosexuality. Dr.
Laura was silenced there, shipments of books are regularly
opened, inspected, and confiscated at the US-Canadian border,
and a censorship board regularly monitors all media for
evidence of criminal incorrectness. Violators are subject
to fines, suspension of licenses, and even jail time. In
the UK, too, this trend is taking
on frightening dimensions, with casual
conversations in pubs subject to surveillance (for evidence
of "racism") and a generally Orwellian atmosphere of fear
is constantly generated to keep a lid on the ever-shrinking
limits of free expression. This is who sits in judgment
of the US: a gaggle of half-free Western "democracies,"
where the defense of culture is criminal and speaking truth
to power can land you in the hoosegaw.

COMING
OF THE BORG

What
we are seeing in Europe, with the rise of the EU, is the
reemergence of a totalitarian form of socialism, and,
moreover, one with international ambitions. Britain is
about to be absorbed into the maw of this continental
Borg,
with only token opposition from the Tories  and
none from the US. The Germans are revving up to impose
a European "constitution" on the rest of the continent,
which has already been divvied up between various corporate
and political interests, and the united socialist states
of Europe is about to become a reality. This is what the
UN vote was really all about: the emerging European
superpower is throwing its weight around even before it
is formally born.

BLOODLESS
COUP

What
Hitler failed to achieve  German hegemony in Europe
 Herr Schroeder and his Social Democrats have (so
far) managed to pull off without a shot being fired. Everyone
in Europe, including the Germans, realizes this, but the
taboo against actually saying it is strictly enforced.
When Sir Peter Tapsell, a senior Conservative party leader,
dared
to publicly identify the Nazi origins of the pan-European
idea, the [London] Times was simply horrified:
"[Tory leader] William Hague faced embarrassment last
night," the Times moaned, "when one of his most
senior party members compared the European vision of Gerhard
Schroeder, the German Chancellor, to Hitler's personal
manifesto and said Labor's tactics on Europe were reminiscent
of the Nazis." Speaking truth to power is considered impolite
by these sophisticates: it makes them blush rather than
cheer. But what red-blooded Englishman (or Scotsman, or
Irishman) would not cheer Sir Peter's wonderfully
intemperate outburst of honesty?: "We may not have studied
Hitler's Mein Kampf in time but, by heaven, there
is no excuse for us not studying the Schroeder Plan now,"
thundered Sir Peter. "You may be sure that the currency
section of Dr Goebbels' Guide to Falsehood is already
well thumbed by the Labour spin-doctors." Hear,
hear!

THE
REAL NEO-NAZIS

Perhaps
Tapsell has read up on the history of the European "vision,"
which  if one consults John Laughland's excellent
book, The
Tainted Source  can indeed be traced back
to Herr Hitler and his pan-European minions. But in the
pro-Blair British media, poor Sir Peter is being typed
as a dotty old Tory, hopelessly out of step, screaming
his defiance at the inevitable. Tapsell hopes that the
British people will rise up against the elites in "an
explosion of rage": if and when it happens, it will be
no thanks to his fellow Tories. The party leaders responded
in no uncertain terms: "Sir Peter has been saying that
to anyone who will listen for more than 20 years but his
views are not shared by the leadership of the Conservative
Party."

OBSTACLES
TO HEGEMONY

Is
the consolidation of a European socialist super-state
inevitable? The project has gone far down the road to
completion, speeded by the active cooperation of the US,
but any number of obstacles remain in its path: the reluctance
of the little countries (Denmark, Switzerland, Austria,
etc.) to surrender their sovereignty, the growing anti-Euro
movement in the United Kingdom that could ultimately rally
opposition on the continent, the ongoing financial scandals
that have made the EU bureaucracy symbolic of endemic
corruption, the increasingly grim prospect of living under
the threat of the Prussian whip  all these roadblocks,
as well as increasing instability in the Balkans and political
shakeups in places like Italy could well prove insuperable.
But the opposition, as Maggie Thatcher has rightfully
pointed out, hasn't got its act together. And, worst of
all, the US government, far from opposing this dangerous
trend, doesn't even recognize it. . . .

LIES
AND INSULTS

The
Europeans are now telling us that they
didn't really mean to do it, it was just an "accident,"
and, after all, Sweden didn't sulk when it was voted off
the human rights commission, it simply got itself reelected
next time around. Yeah, well Sweden doesn't pay for over
25 percent of the UN's operations, and Sweden doesn't
have to host this nest of spies and ingrates in its very
bosom, now does it? A representative of the EU promised
that we could "consult" with them if we wanted a "voice"
on the commission: how nice of them. The US answer, however,
should be "thanks, but no thanks." The Euros aver that
"There was no European Union vote. There was no ganging
up." Hogwash. We had supposedly solid commitments
from the Europeans, in light of the Third World bloc that
always votes itself in, but they didn't come through.
Blatant lying, of course, is an entrenched feature of
the European political scene, where Clinton is considered
a piker and verbal obfuscation long ago achieved the level
of a high art: in this case, however, such an obvious
untruth can only be taken in one way, and that is the
way it was intended: as a mortal insult.

LEAVE
THEM TO THEIR FATE

Three
times we have pulled them out of the abyss: those ceaselessly
quarreling states of Europe, who dragged us into two world
wars and huddled under our nuclear shield in lieu of a
third world conflagration. Twice we saved them from the
Germans, and once from a Soviet-style socialism that would
have "liberated" them against their wishes  now
a German socialist movement, combining both the Prussian
and the Soviet aspects of this undead monster, is rising
up from the grave to threaten what is left of their liberty
and their sovereignty. This time, I say, we ought to leave
them to their fate  while ceasing to subsidize and
support their slide into socialism. It is way past
time to bring our troops home from Europe  to get
them not only out of Kosovo and Bosnia, but out of Germany
as well. Get them out of Macedonia, and out of Spain,
and let the Europeans do what they do best  and
that is fight among themselves.

EARTH
TO RUMSFELD: WAKE UP!

While
Donald Rumsfeld is busy constructing a "defense doctrine"
that is focused on Asia, a Frankenstein monster is rising
out of the European mists, rearing up and feeling its
power, roaring its defiance of the American "hyperpower."
And what is our response? We offer them subsidies, foreign
aid, and full access to our military assets. Don't worry
about those "rogue nations," we burble, as we offer to
extend our projected missile defense system to include
them. The only problem is that the EU is the biggest and
potentially the most dangerous rogue state of all. We
can handle our declared enemies, none of whom is very
powerful: it's our "friends" and "allies" in Europe that
are turning out to be the real problem, and one that will
only loom larger as time goes on.

I'D
SOONER BOMB THE HAGUE!

Why
do they hate us? For all the wrong reasons. Since their
own foreign policy is just as rapacious as our own, if
not more so  Germany, for example, was even more
fanatical than the US and England when it came to waging
the Kosovo war  they have very little ground to
stand on when it comes to our propensity to bomb those
countries that displease us. The European critique, if
any, has always been that we don't bomb often enough,
soon enough, or hard enough, not that we are too aggressive:
certainly that was (and is) their role in the Balkans.
Instead, they attack us for not signing on to the globalist
project to which they are so committed: the Kyoto treaty,
unratified by most countries in the world, and the International
Criminal Court, not to mention the myriad treaties and
international covenants by which they and their American
amen-corner seek to transcend and abolish the US Constitution.
As much as I believe that Bob Kerrey is a war criminal,
I would sooner see the US bomb The Hague than have him
delivered to the International Criminal Court.

THE
ENVY OF THE WORLD

Yeah,
but that doesn't answer the question: why do they hate
us? It isn't "blowback" from our aggressive and murderous
foreign policy  not from the Europeans, at any rate,
since they haven't been victimized by it. What they hate
is our wealth, even as they drain us of it: what they
hate is our constitutional republican system, which (in
theory, if not always in practice) is a standing reproach
to the rule of bureaucrats and censors; and what they
especially hate is the economic system that makes our
liberty possible, and that is free-market capitalism,
which, however imperfectly and inconsistently practiced
in this country, has nonetheless unleashed the productive
power of a free people to such an extent that it is literally
the envy of the world. That is what we have to
endure  the envy of the world  because envy
is the motivating factor in all socialist ideologies.
The idea that some people are better off than others,
and that this is a just outcome  this is
what the Euro-socialists, the heirs of Marx and Engels
(and Lenin), find insufferable. That is why the
"ex"-Communist and Social Democratic rulers of a united
Europe are training their rhetorical guns on the US.

THE
GUNS OF EUROPE

One
of the great ironies  and very real dangers 
of our foreign policy of global intervention is that it
not only creates a lot of unnecessary enemies, but also
leads us to ignore our real enemies. If I were
Donald Rumsfeld, I would forget about China, and start
looking across the Atlantic: for how long will it be before
the guns of Europe aimed in our direction are loaded with
ammunition more deadly than mere rhetoric? It's only a
matter of time.

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